New Amongst the Old

“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment,

for the patch will pull away from the garment,

making the tear worse.”

With the New Year, new resolutions are made. New outlooks are had, and, if nothing else, a sense of hope and possibility is renewed. Within weeks, it all tends to fall apart though.

It’s difficult to live anew amongst the old. We go back to the same jobs and the same co-workers. Day after day, the routine is much the same. Our needs have hardly changed. So as we try to maintain a better perspective and uphold our resolve to do or be better people, it soon seems our everyday lives are even harder than before.

What we experience in the New Year is much like this passage describes: the new making the old seem worse. The old does not adjust to the new easily, making the new feel ill-fitted.

Do you have that sense in your days? As if it isn’t really feasible to improve because nothing around you is?

We aren’t the whole issue. It isn’t just you and I that need improving. Our circumstances, relationships, and lives (though outside of our control!) all need to be renewed.

His renewal in our lives affects everything and make all things new for us. His mercies are new every day. He causes the sun to rise new every day. There are new opportunities each day. And moment by moment, He renews in our hearts a right Spirit.

What an encouragement to us!

Though we sometimes feel like new patches stuck on an old, worn-out dress, the Lord assures us that He has clothed us anew. When we wait on His timing and trust in His continuing-creation, the old becomes new, and we do too.

Bethany, one thing I always think about with the new and old cloths in this Bible story is that the old cloth has already done it’s shrinking. It’s comfortable now. The new cloth still has to do what it was designed to do (at least in part), and that is shrink. It tears away from the comfortable.

Sometimes, we are comfortable with our lives the way they are, yet we know that it’s lacking. We bring in new mindsets and try to live them out, but it’s hard because they haven’t been tested, washed and shrunk yet. And our comfort zones resist the changes we’re trying to make. We can only change when our minds and hearts are set on Jesus. I’m so glad that He clothes us in new clothing, and we don’t have to worry about it being ill-fitting. Great reminder here today!